{"id":7003,"date":"2018-04-17T02:13:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T02:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=7003"},"modified":"2018-04-17T02:13:15","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T02:13:15","slug":"from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-april-16-1918-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-april-16-1918-podcast","title":{"rendered":"From Camp Lee to the Great War: April 16, 1918 – Lester Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cYou don\u2019t need to be afraid of Jim being drafted. He will never haft to come. You will see that. There will not be many farm boys taken until winter\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In his thirty-second letter home from Camp Lee, Virginia, to his sister Minnie Riggle, US Army Wagoner (mule team driver) Lester Scott, a World War I soldier from Wheeling, West Virginia, says they had some short-lived April snow in Virginia. He ran into Bill Wallace. Jess Hewitt is dead, killed in France or on his way home. Les never hears from Cleo anymore [his girlfriend back home]. He wonders where she is. Les says the infantry boys do the cooking. He never has to cook for himself these days. He drove his four-line team of mules to Dutch Gap [roughly 13 miles<\/a>] in three hours with a full load of ammunition. Les is proud of his speed with the mule team. He sent Minnie a shell \u2014 the kind they will shoot at practice. He got two more teeth fixed in Petersburg. He says Minnie should keep Bill [his horse] and was surprised he tried to kick Jim [Riggle]. Les doesn\u2019t think Jim will ever be drafted. Minnie needn\u2019t worry. The farm boys might get a furlough anyway.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the previous day, April 15, the Battle of Hazebrouck<\/a> (part of the Battle of Lys and the German Spring Offensive) ended, and on April 16, Passchendaele<\/a> (a rural village in Flanders, a Dutch-speaking region of northern Belgium overlapping France) was reoccupied by German forces. In the British House of Commons, a \u201cMilitary Services Act\u201d was passed, allowing men up to 55 years of age to be drafted, and extending this law to Ireland, causing outrage and organized resistance, a \u201cConscription Crisis<\/a>\u201d led by Irish nationalists and Catholic clergy. This was one of the key factors leading up to the Irish War of Independence<\/a> (1919-1921).<\/p>\n

Lester Scott was drafted in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, where so many Wheeling soldiers were trained. And, like so many of his Ohio Valley comrades, he served in the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, Battery \u201cA,\u201d 80th (Blue Ridge) Division in France. This is his thirty-second letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, April 16, 1918.<\/p>\n

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April 16, 1918 Letter \u2013 Lester Scott to his sister, Minnie Riggle<\/h2>\n
\"April<\/a>
Letter to Minnie Riggle from Lester Scott, April 16, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n